Total Lunar Eclipse of October 8, 2014

A collage of the Lunar Eclipse.
Note: Only the first half of the eclipse
was visible from Michigan. 

We had a very successful viewing of the Total Lunar Eclipse on October 8. It was great to see a dedicated group of people show up so early to witness the eclipse. The weather was a bit chilly, but the skies were clear and offered us a perfect view of the eclipse, Jupiter, and some winter constellations such as Orion, Canis Major, Auriga, and Taurus. We got the opportunity to view Uranus through the telescope as it was very close to the Moon. We also viewed the Orion Nebula, and Jupiter with it's 4 Galilean moons. Overall, it was an eventful early morning, that ended with the eclipsing moon setting in the west, and the crisp October morning sun rising.

The Lunar Eclipse Close to Totality
Notice the planet Uranus

The Orion Constellation - October 8, 2014
Notice the Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula - October 8, 2014
Taken with Nikon D5100 w/ 18 mm Nikkor Zoom Lens

The eclipsing Moon setting as the Sun is rising.

Sunrise Animation - October 8, 2014

Sunrise - October 8, 2014
Oakland Community College - Farmington Hills, MI

Lunar Eclipse Viewing - October 8, 2014

Lunar Eclipse on February 20, 2008 - East Lansing, MI

UPDATE
10/7/2014, 11:00 pm EDT

Weather forecast is showing mostly CLEAR SKIES for tomorrow morning. Looks like viewing is a GO! Hope to see you there!

On Wednesday, October 8, there will be a Total Lunar Eclipse that will be visible for us in the Michigan area. The eclipse will happen in the dawn hours on Wednesday morning, and we will be gathering in front of A-Bldg at Orchard Ridge with telescopes and binoculars. Viewing will begin around 6:15 a.m. as the total eclipse will begin at 6:25 a.m. We will gather by the island in the traffic circle in front of A-Bldg.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is located between the Moon and the Sun. This occurs during a full moon phase. The lunar eclipse begins when the Moon enters the partial shadow of Earth, the penumbra, and is greatest when the Moon is in the center of the full shadow of the Earth, the umbra.

Lunar eclipses usually last for a few hours, and are most exciting when seen entering/exiting the umbra. In addition to the Lunar Eclipse this Wednesday, we will also have the opportunity to look at the planet Uranus through the telescope, as it will be very close to the Moon in our sky during that time. Also, you will have the opportunity to view Venus and some other October morning constellations.

The Anatomy of a Lunar Eclipse.
 (Source: http://www.sunwheelgrove.co.uk/cosmos/the-moon)

Lunar Eclipse Time Table (EDT for the Detroit Area)

Partial Eclipse Begins - 5:15 a.m.

Total Eclipse Begins - 6:25 a.m.

Greatest Eclipse - 6:55 a.m.

Total Eclipse Ends - 7:24 a.m.

Moon Sets - 7:44 a.m. 

As always, this viewing is dependent on weather. If the forecast is too cloudy for that morning, there will most likely not be a viewing. If it's crystal clear, we hope to see you there! I will keep everyone posted as we get closer to the date, so WATCH THIS SPACE!

Clear Skies!!

- SHH

The Heart of the Scorpion

Full Moon - September 8, 2014
Taken w/ Nexus 5 through telescope.

The fall skies are upon us - and they're filled with stars (among other things)! We've had two opportunities to view so far, September 8th, and September 17th. The first night offered us the Harvest Moon, which flooded the skies with light and dimmed most of the stars. The second night however was one that started off with crisp n' clear skies, that got a bit hazy toward the end. 

Saturn and Mars are the two planets visible for us around this time, however they are about to dip below the western skies as they make their ways around the Sun. We were lucky to have viewed Saturn twice now, and perhaps we'll have a chance at viewing one, maybe two other times. For the early birds among you, Venus is another planet that is visible in the predawn skies and you're encouraged to have it in your sky journals! 

Scorpius with Mars and Saturn on September 17, 2014.
Also in view: Parts of the Teapot & Ophiuchus, and an airplane trail.

Mars (Ares) at this time is in the constellation Scorpius, visible for us low in the southern/southwestern sky. Antares (Anti-Mars) is one of the stars that stand out in our southern sky at the moment. Antares is the 17th brightest star in our skies, and it is considered a red supergiant. Its color and brightness resemble the planet Mars in the night sky, and due to its possible confusion with the red planet, it is said to have been named the anti-Mars.

Ryan looking at the Moon with the Big Dipper in the background. 

Samer looking for the Perseus Double Open Cluster w/ Big Dipper in Background. 

The sky is always changing, and there are quite a few stars and constellations that will rise in the East/Northeast throughout this semester. The fall semester provides a wonderful opportunity for us to experience how the sky changes as the seasons change. Stay tuned for some awesome events (i.e Lunar Eclipse) and remember to keep looking up!

Clear Skies!! 

-SHH

The Sun, The Moon, The Planets, and the ISS

Astronomy students w/ Moon,
getting ready to see the ISS.

June 5th was an eventful evening at Orchard Ridge. We had the opportunity to view the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and end the day with a flyby of the International Space Station. In addition, we had the Solar System Event lab, which on it's own was another mind boggling experience that sheds some light on how vast and empty our solar system really is.  It is somewhat difficult for us to swallow the idea that a solar system with a unique planet such as Earth can be considered empty, in the cosmic perspective of things, it does seem that way. 

We started off the evening with a viewing of our Sun, and were able to see 3 sunspots and quite the number of flares, though "tiny" around the edges of our star. As always, we used our Coronado PST solar scope for safe viewing with an H-Alpha filter. It's always a treat when we are able to see not only the flares around the edges, but also the granules and some flares on the front side of the Sun. A lot of these flares may look tiny to us, but each can engulf up to 3-4 Earths!

Safely viewing the Sun on May 29.

Sun June 5 through the Coronado PST.
Sunspots didn't appear in photo.

Our first stop during the Solar System
Event, SOL. Joe is comparing the
size of Earth to the Sun.

After class, we started our Solar System Event lab. We constructed the solar system starting with SOL at Farmington Rd. Our scale model of the Sun (which by the way is very beautifully and brilliantly made) gives us a two-dimensional realization as to how large the Sun really is compared to Earth, and all the other planets. You can only imagine how a 3D model would look, and how even tinier it would make us feel. To me, this is the first part of a bigger realization of how truly small we are in our own neighborhood of planets. The Sun is massive, its flares would engulf us several times, and as Johannes Kepler once realized, it is in total control.

Sprinkling some asteroids.

Midway through, we stopped to sprinkle the asteroid belt. This is the part where it hits most people (or it should) on just how small asteroids and solar debris truly are in comparison to the solar system itself. We are sprinkling salt and pepper particles in an orbit that is roughly quarter of a mile away from Farmington Rd. Just imagine shrinking yourself to our scale model; Something the size of our space shuttle would be equivalent to the size of a bacteria. Now imagine you are that bacteria, venturing through the asteroid belt on our scale. What are the chances that you are going to run into one salt particle as you make your way to Jupiter?

At Jupiter, discussing
the scale of our
Solar System.

I believe the whole experience comes into perspective the moment we talk about our nearest star. On our scale, we are but nanometers tall (atomic scale); our buildings, space ships, and monuments are barely in the micrometers (bacteria, cells). We live on a planet that is the size of a small marble which is "floating" in space in an orbit around a star which without, we nano-particles wouldn't even exist. Our technology has ventured us to the outreach of our solar system, beyond the Kuiper Belt where a tiny bacteria we call Voyager 1 is moving at a pace of milimeters per year. On our scale, Voyager 1 is only at I-75, no where close to reaching our nearest star, and it's been 30+ years since we've launched it. As Joe put it, it would take many generations of people on a space ship to make it to our nearest star. In a way, it sort of is a lifestyle, one where the spaceship we build will be the only familiar home to the children that would be born on such a ship. Many will never know what it's like to be on Earth, and many will be born, live their lives and perish before the ship ever makes it back to tell whichever new civilization (if any still remains on Earth) about our nearest star. The saddest yet most humbling part of all this, is that there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone. I'll let that sink in. 

The Moon on June 5, 2014. First quarter phase.
Taken with Nexus 5 camera through Orion 6" SkyQuest.

Saturn through telescope.
Best image I got so far.

We decided to have an optional viewing after lab. The twilight sky was brilliant, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were immediately visible right after the Sun dipped below the horizon. We were not able to see Mercury as it was very low by the horizon and of course trees and such were in our way. Though the summer skies are still quite bright around dusk, we were still able to enjoy the views of the Moon and the planets through the telescope. 

Not long after, the stars began to appear. The brightest ones like Vega, Spica and Arcturus were among the first to be seen. It was a great evening for viewing. It was difficult to see any stars in the northern sky because the Sun had set in the northwest. It was still bright in that portion of the sky.

Fish-eye view of the ISS rising from the southwest and moving over our heads.
Top: Constellations, stars and planets labeled as the 15 second exposure made the stars show!
Note: ISS passing close to the Moon. Gaps in stream line are due to delay in taking photos
(I was busy watching the real thing!)

The grand finale of the evening was the flyby of the International Space Station. The ISS appeared in the southwest at 9:50 pm, and was visible for 6 minutes, reached an altitude of 84 degrees and disappeared in the northeast. It is always quite the sight, to see a bright star-like object zipping across the sky and knowing that there are 6 humans in that thing looking down upon us. 

Students in foreground watching as the ISS is setting in the northeast.
Again, the gap in the line is due to delay between photographs.

Animated GIF made of ISS flying over our heads.

In a nutshell, it was a great day for astronomy. Keep looking up! 

Clear Skies! 

- SHH

Cloudy with a hint of Moon - Jupiter, & Mars

Summer astronomy students practicing
how to measure altitude and azimuth.

The first observing session for our summer astronomy group was for the sole purpose of teaching how to measure altitude and azimuth in our sky. Unfortunately, the clouds where plentiful, the sky was bright, and the stars were either too faint to be seen in the breaks, or covered by the clouds. Luckily, the Moon was bright enough to present itself as a target for everyone to practice their measurements on. It was a waxing gibbous with craters and mountains that stood out along the terminator, and was quite the view despite the haze.
 

Measuring Altitude

In addition to the Moon, we were fortunate to see not one, but two planets! Jupiter was bright enough to shine through the clouds, yet through the telescope it was very difficult to see it's moons. The major reason the moons in the telescope were faint was because it was still the evening twilight, the sky wasn't dark yet! While the summer night sky is filled with spectacular stars and constellations, the Sun doesn't set until late in the evening , 8:40 pm in early May to around 9:15 pm in June. This means that the twilight period where the skies are still bright may go up to about 10:30 pm during the summer solstice.

In any case, the summer constellations are plentiful, and as we make our way through May, we're starting to see some new constellations rise in the East, and some familiar ones starting to set in the West.

Waxing gibbous phase on May 8th, 2014.
The sky was too cloudy and hazy.
Image captured through telescope.

We've had quite a clear nights since the start of the semester - and just this weekend we were predicted to have had an intense meteor shower, but the predictions were wrong, and as of this moment they have declassified the Camelopardalis Meteor Shower as a "non-shower" event with only a few meteors here and there (instead of the 100-200 per hour you might have read on the news). The sky however is always full of surprises, you may never know what to expect unless you keep looking up!

- SHH